A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures.
Tallinn TV Tower is a free-standing structure with an observation deck, built to provide better telecommunication services for the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics regatta event. It is located near the suburb Pirita, six km north-east of the Tallinn city center. With its 313 m (1030.2 ft), the TV tower is the tallest nonbuilding structure in Tallinn. The tower was officially opened on 11 July 1980. The viewing platform at a height of 170 metres was open to the public until 26 November 2007, when it was closed for renovation. The tower began receiving visitors again on 5 April 2012. The building is administered by the public company Levira and is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.
Stahleck Castle is a 12th-century fortified castle in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley at Bacharach in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It stands on a crag approximately 160 metres (520 ft) above sea level on the left bank of the river at the mouth of the Steeg valley, approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Koblenz, and offers a commanding view of the Lorelei valley. Its name means "impregnable castle on a crag", from the Middle High German words stahel (steel) and ecke. It has a water-filled partial moat, a rarity in Germany. Built on the orders of the Archbishop of Cologne, it was destroyed in the late 17th century but rebuilt in the 20th and is now a hostel.
Idstein is a town of about 25,000 inhabitants in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Because of its well preserved historical Altstadt it is part of the Deutsche Fachwerkstraße, connecting towns with fine fachwerk buildings and houses. In 2002, the town hosted the 42nd Hessentag state festival.
Rheinfels Castle is a castle ruin located above the left (west) bank of the Rhine in Sankt Goar, Germany. It was started in 1245 by Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen. After expansions, it was the largest fortress in the Middle Rhein Valley between Koblenz and Mainz. It was slighted by French Revolutionary Army troops in 1797. It is the largest castle overlooking the Rhine, and historically covered five times its current area.
The Marksburg is a castle above the town of Braubach in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is one of the principal sites of the Rhine Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fortress was used for protection rather than as a residence for royal families. It has a striking example of a bergfried designed as a butter-churn tower. Of the 40 hill castles between Bingen am Rhein and Koblenz the Marksburg was one of only two which had never been destroyed and at least the only one that had never fallen into disrepair.
Bergfried is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under German influence. Stephen Friar in the Sutton Companion to Castles describes a bergfried as a "free-standing, fighting-tower". Its defensive function is to some extent similar to that of a keep in English or French castles. However, the characteristic difference between a bergfried and a keep is that a bergfried was typically not designed for permanent habitation.
A ridge turret is a turret or small tower constructed over the ridge or apex between two or more sloping roofs of a building. It is usually built either as an architectural ornament for purely decorative purposes or else for the practical housing of a clock, a bell or an observation platform. Its function is thus different from that of a roof lantern, despite a frequent similarity of external appearance. It can have a flat roof but usually has a pointed roof or other kind of apex over.
Klopp Castle is a castle in the town of Bingen am Rhein in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. In the nineteenth century, the bergfried from the original medieval fortified castle was restored and a new building added which houses the town's administration.
A turret was a small watch tower, incorporated into the curtain wall of Hadrian's Wall. The turrets were normally spaced at intervals of one third of a Roman mile between Milecastles, giving two Turrets between each Milecastle.
Gräfenstein Castle is a ruined rock castle about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the village of Merzalben in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is in the county of Südwestpfalz within the Palatine Forest and is often called Merzalber Schloss. It is built on a rock plateau 12 metres (39 ft) high at an elevation of 447 metres (1,467 ft) above sea level.
Prandegg Castle is a ruined hill castle in Austria, near the village of Schönau im Mühlkreis in the Freistadt District.
An elevated entrance is a type of entrance, common in the design of medieval castles, that is not accessible from ground level, but lies at the level of an upper storey. The elevated entrance is the lowest and frequently the only way of entering a fortified building or residence. In the case of circular towers, a large opening in the main wall at ground level was a potential weakness and experts on castle design have argued that the elevated entrance served a structural as well as defensive purpose.
Idstein Castle, later the Renaissance style Schloss Idstein, is located in Idstein in the county of Rheingau-Taunus, Germany. The hill castle was the residenz of the counts of Nassau-Idstein. The castle's Witches' Tower (Hexenturm) is one of the town's oldest buildings and a substantial local landmark.
Vilsegg Castle is a former fortification in the Austrian state of Tyrol that stands about a kilometre northwest of the little town of Vils, between Pfronten and Füssen, a few hundred metres away from the Austro-German border.
Falkenstein Castle, also called New Falkenstein (Neu-Falkenstein), is a ruined hill castle at 450 m above sea level (NHN) in the eponymous climatic spa of Falkenstein, a quarter of Königstein im Taunus in the county of Hochtaunuskreis in the German state of Hesse.
The churning of butter is an important part of Nepalese livelihood. Not only a part of day-to-day activity, it is a component of traditional culture and identity of Nepalese society. It involves the separation of butter from curd by the action of centrifugation using a series of traditional devices.
Nassenfels Castle stands at the edge of the market village of Nassenfels in the county of Eichstätt in Upper Bavaria. The former water castle is still lived in and may only be viewed from the outside.
Spaniola Castle is a ruined castle in the municipality of Pontresina of the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland.
The Brömserburg is a castle located near the banks of the Rhine in the town of Rüdesheim am Rhein in Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the German state of Hesse. Its original structure was probably one of the first stone castles in the Rhine Gorge, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
